Rule-of-Three for May 23

[Nemesis Destiny]

Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (Rule-of-Three: 05/23/2011)

Here it is, folks!

 

[Incenjucar]

Iiiinteresting.

Question 3 is obvious, but the other two are very interesting. The fact that they've decided to "train" themselves on epic is absolutely fascinating.

 

[Aegeri]

The second question is both disappointing and interesting. For one, it confirms no printed epic support might appear for a great amount of time. On the other hand, at least Dragon/Dungeon will be publishing something, with hopefully some printed support down the line. Personally I would be happy with them just putting epic monsters into monster books like Monster Vault. I mean, that would be the *best* start.

Adventures and an epic tier adventure boxed set though? I could eat that up easily. Especially if it came with monsters that AREN'T demons or undead.

 

[Colmarr]

Adventures and an epic tier adventure boxed set though? I could eat that up easily. Especially if it came with monsters that AREN'T demons or undead.

As an honest question, what's left for Epic after you take out demons or undead?

I can only think of other immortals (angels and devils), fey and aberrations. Otherwise you need to get 'crazy' and mess around with parallel universes and such, don't you?

 

[Jack99]

Dragons? Primordials? Other Elementals? Or perhaps something new, like Swordwings?

 

[Aegeri]

As an honest question, what's left for Epic after you take out demons or undead?

I can only think of other immortals (angels and devils), fey and aberrations. Otherwise you need to get 'crazy' and mess around with parallel universes and such, don't you?

You have no idea how much I would love Fey and Aberrations. It would be so much.

Being able to run a campaign from heroic tier to epic, about the Winter Fey (as an example, they are pretty neat antagonists) or actually being able to use Mouseferatu's excellent Bramble Queen in a campaign? I would weep tears of bloody joy. Tears. If I want to now, it's simply impossible unless I like making all my own monsters.

Aberrations are curiously underused in epic as well. Aboleths and Illithids only go into lower epic - plus Aboleths are mostly MM1 and suck horribly. Then you have a jump to the star spawn at upper epic and then Allabah. Again, more abberations across levels 20-30 would be perfect for the same reason.

After that you could add more magical beasts, evil immortal/planar organizations and similar. So long as the other creature types there: Fey, Magical Beasts, Dragons (we don't have epic MV designed dragons either) and Aberrants have cover you have what you need. Then you can mix up mechanics with what is already there and well established. A game where I can pick Immortals/Fey/Aberrants works much better than "Well, um... I suppose I could use demons again?".

Also in some ways, newer epic Undead and even Immortals wouldn't be bad. Devils are nowhere near as well represented as Demons at epic. Actually nothing is. They honestly have been doing such a great job at monster mechanics that almost anything non-demonic would be welcome. Demons are the most expandable and usable antagonists in epic tier, plus are easy to use from levels 20-30. Plus you have about a billion great level 30+ options for demons as well. They can then be backed up by tons of elementals and constructs as a general rule also: So encounter variety with a campaign focusing on demons is easy.

Anything else? Not so much.

 

[Colmarr]

Dragons? Primordials? Other Elementals? Or perhaps something new, like Swordwings?

I think part of the problem is that, as others have pointed out, most of the creatures we have at epic - and indeed most of what we think of as being epic - are 'capstone' creatures. You can't have ten fights against dragons (or primordials) per level from 21 to 30, because D&D lore has already established those creatures as rare.

You need a species or group that might conceivably have rank and file members of epic level, and to believably do that you're looking at the Astral Sea, the Elemental Chaos, the Far Realm or you're going really weird and checking our parallel universes and pocket dimensions and such. I believe the swordwings fit into that last category.

It's an interesting design dilemma.

You have no idea how much I would love Fey and Aberrations. It would be so much.

To be honest, I don't see fey as big enough threats to justify a prolongued epic presence. Not quite sure why. Abberations, on the other hand, I can see.

 

[Aegeri]

Then you need to read more of the old material on fey creatures, even from this edition like the Bramble Queen and the Prince of Frost. Both are very powerful and epic tier antagonists. Good luck making a campaign around them, because there is absolutely *nothing* to put with them except the odd random thing. Robert J. Schwalb for example posted this excellent epic level monster on his blog. While it is a solo, it just shows you that you can make compelling epic tier worthy monsters from any origin type. Especially when Wizards already put in two major fey antagonists in epic tier - shame they haven't got any friends to make them useful.

 

[Incenjucar]

The fey are as scary as anything else in D&D, though they should REALLY expand on the feywild. There is a pretty massive amount of room for epic monsters if things are simply expanded on. It does, however, tend to move further away from the World, though planar threats can always show up in your back yard.

 

[Aegeri]

The fey are as scary as anything else in D&D, though they should REALLY expand on the feywild. There is a pretty massive amount of room for epic monsters if things are simply expanded on. It does, however, tend to move further away from the World, though planar threats can always show up in your back yard.

The beautiful thing about the Feywild (Also Shadowfell) is they are really close to the mortal world. It's very easy to implement them from level 1 in a campaign. Making them significant in an ongoing campaign to level 30 is impossible: There isn't enough worthwhile to use at that point. It's also the case that because the Feywild is so close to the mortal world, it's really much easier to explain and have them want to act with the mortal world more. Plus they are arguably a lot more interesting in this interaction than Demons, who are somewhat single minded by fluff.

It would be great to have an epic adventure set in the feywild, with lots of new fey creatures and such. You can do so much with the fantastic terrain in the feywild too. You would also have plenty of monsters to work with in heroic and paragon to support such a campaign (as they are already present and accounted for). It's just a matter of actually making them and supporting them in that tier.

Also I find the idea wizards needs to "train" themselves on epic tier content both amusing and baffling. They did so much right with the epic monsters in MM3, where the real problem with epic is that I am genuinely confused. They are making their own problem by cutting epic monsters out of the game in MV/MV2 like products. Then trying to "train" themselves as to what the problem is? Honestly, sometimes what Wizards does these days makes zero sense to me. Minding again, a feywild based epic adventure would soon make them realize what the huge flaws in epic tier were. I wouldn't be surprised - just quietly - to see them make such a thing and it be all demons. Because the amount of work they would have to do to make anything else viable in an adventure would be immense. They'd need to basically make their own mini-epic tier monster vault for a non-demon adventure to work practically.

Not that I would complain about that whatsoever if that is what they did!